Men, by contrast, were wrapped head to toe in elaborate costumes: wool, velvet, chainmail, or stiff linen, depending on their station. To show a man’s bare ankle was a crime of indecent exposure. To see a woman’s collarbone was merely Tuesday.
Elara looked back at the city. Lights were flickering. Alarm bells beginning to ring. Somewhere, Master Kellus was smiling. Somewhere, the Order of the Fold was scrambling to rewrite scripture.
“You unbound the knot,” the dryad whispered. “One woman, alone, unclothed, without a man’s gaze to twist it. The Tithe was a lie. The naked body is not a conduit for male magic. It is a key to the world’s own heart.” cmnf fantasy
“I am going east,” she said.
Kellus smiled. “That is your anima fluens untapped. Not dangerous. Powerful. The Order of the Fold has spent a thousand years convincing women that their own skin is a hazard. It is not. Clothing does not bind a man’s magic—it inflates his ego. And a woman’s nakedness does not release magic—it releases obedience. The Tithe is not a circuit. It is a leash.” Men, by contrast, were wrapped head to toe
“The Howling Wood,” Kellus said, “does not attack because women are uncovered. It attacks because the Tithe weakens the veil. Every naked woman forced to stand before a clothed man tears a tiny hole in reality. The Order knows this. They feed on the chaos. They need the monsters to justify the law.” That night, Elara made a choice.
Without the Tithe, crops would wither. Without the Tithe, the boundary walls against the Howling Wood would collapse. Without the Tithe, a woman’s own untamed magic would burn her from the inside out by her thirtieth year. Elara looked back at the city
“The first thing you must understand,” Kellus said, not looking at her body but at her eyes, “is that the Tithe is not magic. It is a cage.”